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posted by CoolHand on Saturday May 27 2017, @10:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-bet-your-life dept.

Physicists and mathematicians work with probability and predicting the behaviour of systems all the time, and it was perhaps inevitable that some of them would try to use that knowledge to beat the odds at casinos. Paul Halpern has an article where he tells the stories of several famous mathematicians and physicists who did just that. Physics graduate student Albert Hibbs (who would later on co-author with Richard Feynman Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals and become the mission announcer at JPL), and medical student Roy Walford, did precisely that in 1947, studying the properties of roulette wheels for biases they could exploit.

Early wheels were cruder than today's and sometimes had defects. Such flaws, the students realized, offered the key to successful prediction. By studying the mechanical idiosyncrasies of various machines, they developed predictive models, carefully placed bets, and manage to win thousands of dollars. They used much of their earnings to buy a boat and sail around the world.

Later, Edward Thorp, hearing of Hibbs and Walford's exploits tried to do the same thing himself. By then the casinos had fixed the defects that allowed those two to beat the odds, so a new strategy needed to be employed. He made the acquaintance of Claude Shannon, and in 1961, they developed what became the world's first wearable computer... for cheating at roulette.

By 1961, Thorp and Shannon had built and tested the world's first wearable computer: it was merely the size of a cigarette pack and able to fit into the bottom of a specially-designed shoe. Toe switches would activate the computer once the wheel and ball were set into motion, collecting timing data for both. Once the computer calculated the most likely result, it would transmit that value as musical tones to a tiny speaker lodged in an earpiece. The wires were camouflaged as much as possible.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:46PM (#516562)

    S/T

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:52PM (#516566)

    Sieg, Heil!

    Son of a Jewish postal wanker, that's classic.